3/16/2024 0 Comments Divine office and book of commonsDespite his premature death, Cranmer’s influence lived on. In July of 1553, Edward VI died, aged just fifteen, and was succeeded by his half-sister Mary, a Catholic, who rapidly restored the Latin Mass, with its altars, rood screens, vestments, and traditional Eucharistic theology, and burned Cranmer at the stake for good measure. However, that text lasted less than a year. Three years later in 1552, a new edition of the BCP was produced, which excised the words “mass” and “altar”, rearranged the Eucharistic Rite to emphasize still further its memorial, rather than sacrificial, character, and eliminated all clerical vestments save for a simple surplice.ĭetail from title page from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer Attempts to introduce the prayer book sparked rebellions in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, and Cornwall, which led to more than five thousand deaths.īut the first edition was never more than a waypoint on the road of reform. Though moderate relative to the new Protestant services taking shape in mainland Europe, it was still a radical departure from anything that had gone before and proved deeply unpopular in many parts of the country. As a result, the first edition of 1549 was a compromise which for all its changes retained many Catholic elements, including the use of stone altars, clerical vestments, and the essential structure of the mass. ![]() ![]() He had been frustrated in his first attempt by the House of Lords, in which sat the still largely conservative Lords Spiritual. Some of the editions of the Book of Common Prayer, held by Keble Collegeĭespite all this, Cranmer was determined to go still further. Any suggestions that human works contributed to salvation were stamped out, in favour of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone. ![]() The text of the service was altered to portray the Eucharist as a sacrament of communion and thanksgiving, rather than a sacrifice to God. Just as dramatically, the focal point of the medieval mass – the elevation of the host at the moment of consecration – was abolished. The Book of Common Prayer replaced these with a single English text. Until that point, worship in England had been conducted in Latin, from a variety of service books – one for mass, another for services like baptisms and funerals, and another still for the eight daily services comprising the Divine Office. When the BCP was introduced, however, far more striking than the quality of its English was the fact that it was in English at all. Enter the reforming Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who in 1549 produced the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer, one of the most memorable and influential texts in the history of the English language Edward’s newly Protestant English church needed a new form of worship to reflect its new theology. That changed during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI, a convinced evangelical. Under Henry VIII, England broke with the Catholic Church and its leaders in Rome, but the mercurial Henry never fully committed to Protestantism either, largely maintaining Catholic forms of worship and leaving an English church that was, in the eyes of many, still far too Catholic. ![]() The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, held by Keble College But to understand the significance of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), we have to go back to its beginning. It reached its final form in 1662, and Keble preserves a beautiful original copy of that 1662 text in its Special Collections. For the next century, this text triggered ferocious disputes and bloody revolutions, which in turn led to repeated revisions of the text. In 1549 Thomas Cranmer and Edward VI ushered in the most radical and disruptive liturgical break in the history of English churchgoing, with the promulgation of the Book of Common Prayer. Special Collections 1662 Book of Common Prayer
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |